Spur Posse Victim Speaks Out to Encourage Others

An 11-year-old girl who was sexually assaulted by a member of the Spur Posse in Lakewood said she was telling her story publicly for the first time Tuesday to encourage other victims to do the same.

The 16-year-old boy accused of sexually assaulting her admitted to the charge earlier this week and was sentenced to a county juvenile facility, authorities said.

“What he did to me was wrong,” the girl, her voice quivering, said at a news conference at her lawyer’s office. “Finally, he is going to pay for it.”

The girl said she had been waiting for the opportunity to speak for herself. “I have been upset because I wanted to be on TV . . . to show how I feel,” she said. “I wanted to say it for myself.

“I hope this will encourage other girls to come forward if they feel they have been the victims of the Spur Posse,” she said.

Meanwhile, sheriff’s deputies said Tuesday that they are investigating allegations of sexual assault by at least one, and possibly two, new victims who have come forward.

Sitting stiffly in an armchair, a fat law book propping her up, the Lakewood sixth-grader quietly rebuked those who have blamed the girls and called them “sluts.”

“It makes me kind of upset,” said the girl, who was flanked by her parents and her attorney. “I think there should be names for the boys.”

The 16-year-old boy who admitted in court Monday that he molested the girl last summer is one of only two Spur Posse members to be charged by the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office in response to numerous allegations that posse members assaulted girls and kept points of their sexual conquests. The boy, charged with lewd conduct against a child under age 14, has been in custody at Los Padrinos Juvenile Facility and will be sentenced to at least eight months at a county juvenile facility.

The victim’s mother--a woman who identified herself only as Vicky--said it was “a relief that our girl was listened to, that she was heard.”

The district attorney’s office charged a second 16-year-old boy last week in connection with the molestation of the same girl. But sheriff’s deputies said they have neither talked to the boy nor arrested him. Detective Doug Blaydes said deputies still need to “make certain (of) the identification of the second boy.”

Deborah Jentsch, who represents the boy in the first case, said she thinks authorities do not know the whereabouts of the boy in the second case. But Blaydes said authorities “are pretty sure we know where he lives.”

“We determined that the victim was no longer in danger,” said Blaydes.

Blaydes said that although the charge is the same, the circumstances are different in the second case. He would not discuss the details of that case.